Situated on the outskirts of Gandhinagar, the site comprised a four-acre expanse of flat, featureless land. In the absence of significant natural landmarks or topographical variation, the design process hinged on the act of siting—placing built volumes in dynamic relation to the vast open space—and arranging programmatic parts to reinforce this relationship. The house, intended primarily for day or weekend occupancy, demanded a spatial hierarchy that foregrounded the living–dining areas as the active social core, while assigning the sleeping quarters a more contained, secondary status. Compounding this was the challenge of accommodating a peripheral walking track—allowing the building to be perceived from all sides—while simultaneously creating a defined “back” to conceal service areas. These conditions were embraced as an opportunity to engage critically with conventions of architectural language, particularly those seen in the design of exurban villas and campuses.
To exploit the landscaped vista to the north, the house was positioned towards the southern edge of the plot, close to the service zones. This strategic displacement, however, risked relegating the south façade to a diminished architectural role—leading to a classic front-versus-back dilemma. Here, the project drew inspiration from Doshi’s “edge” buildings at and around CEPT University. In works such as the Herwitz Art Gallery, the NZEB building, or the Kanoria Gallery Café, rhomboidal plan forms activate the short ends of linear buildings along the campus’ perimeter. The resulting geometric torque generates spatial curiosity, encourages peripheral circulation, and blurs the rigid distinctions between front and back. In an open, incrementally evolving campus, such buildings simultaneously acknowledged territorial limits while sustaining the conceptual possibility of future extension.
The Randheja House adapts this dual quality of the rhomboidal plan to unify its four elevations while allowing each side to address distinct programmatic and environmental conditions. On the east side, the scheme’s angled geometry choreographs the arrival sequence, guiding entrants toward the drop-off point and principal entry into the house. To the north, the roof slopes steeply downwards to frame the vista, intensifying views of the garden and embedding the landscape within the interior experience. On the south, a jacket-like façade folds around the structure, shielding it from the harsh summer sun while enclosing service areas at the rear and on the terrace. Its sculptural treatment restores architectural presence to what might otherwise be a utilitarian elevation. On the west, the living room projects out toward the pool, sheltered from above by the cantilevered beak of the roof. The roof’s chamfered edge runs parallel to the pool deck, producing a shared geometry that marks the project’s spatial climax—an open release from enclosed interiority into the surrounding landscape.
Through this interplay of geometric form, programmatic hierarchy, and environmental response, the design dissolves conventional binaries of front/back, inside/outside and transforms a neutral site into an architectural field of movement, orientation, and layered thresholds.
